 Aloha. Navigating the journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for the end of life here. And to assist people to talk about their wishes. It's time to transform our culture. So we shift from not talking about dying to talking about it. It's time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives. And it's time to communicate about the kind of care we want and don't want for ourselves. We believe that the place for this to begin is not in the intensive care unit. Together we can explore the various paths to life's ending. Together we can make these difficult conversations easier. Together we can make sure that our own wishes and those of our loved ones are expressed and respect. If you're ready to join, we ask. Navigate the journey. And today, we have my dear friend, Scott Foster, who is the co-founder of Hawaii Society of Death with Dignity, and chair of the Kupuna Caucus. Well, chair of the Kupuna Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. And co-founder of Hawaii Advocates for Consumer Rights going into our third decade. Wow. So let's talk first about the Kupuna Caucus of the Democratic Party. What is a Kupuna Caucus? The Kupuna Caucus is the organization of seniors. And although many of our members, most of our members are seniors, I also include anyone younger because we believe that the changes that need to be made in government and society can only be achieved by us all combining forces. The older, wiser experienced political folks with the younger, newer people who maybe you're just activating are becoming engaged in trying to change society for the better. What do you mean by younger? Well, boating age. Oh, that young? That young. And I'm 74, so that leaves a whole lot of people. And we're lucky now because the Democratic Party, well, before the last election, there's been a tsunami of younger people, college age, and certainly college age and that, who have gotten activated because I kind of liken this flurry of college age activity politically to the Vietnam War, which is what energized much of the political action during the Vietnam War. We didn't have a war to mobilize them this time, but we have the... You don't think what's going on in the... Well, that's a different kind of war. But what I think it is, and as I read, I've come to the conclusion that it's the number one, the crushing student debt, only to get out of college with a degree and an upper level degrees, only to find there are no jobs. So to me, that's what's causing this influx of activity, which is good. Well, it seemed to me that I saw this real energy was after Mr. Trump was elected. And there were people that I... The feeling of the energy, just feeling of it, harkened me back to many, many years because I'm an old-time warhorse, you know, you ring the bell and he's out. But that energy is incredible. It is just wonderful to feel it, to see it. It is, and I agree. Certainly, the circumstances in Washington since the election have ignited this across the nation. And that's all good. I wish the circumstances were different, of course. Having seen those many people now actively engaged, it's the best thing that could have happened for democracy. Yeah, because they were even out in the street in Russia demonstrating, and that was incredible, just a couple of days ago, to see that. You and I can remember that they would have been hauled off to prison or worse. Well, they did. They hauled off some people. But the point is, they took the chance and they showed up. So, let's talk now about the Hawaii Society for Death with Dignity. And for those of you that are in our audience that know, we have been supporting the medical aid in dying legislation. And my heart is broken because our bill went to purgatory. It's called a deferment. So, let's talk. What is a deferment? What happened? What do we go from here? Just, like I said, my heart is broken. Well, actually, the bad news is that the bill was deferred. The good news was that it was not shelved. Deferring means it's still alive in the committee. As you know, this is the first year of a biennial session. And we'll talk about what we're trying to do in a minute. But if we're not able to move the bill out of that committee this session, it comes back alive in that committee next year. So we have a year to build more force, political force across the state to do something about it. With that said, as you know, we are in the midst of trying to take an action with the House to pull the bill from that committee into the full House, which is called a Committee of the Whole. Now, we were able to do this in 2002. It was reversed. It was locked in the Senate Committee, Senate Health Committee then. Now it's locked up in the House Health Committee. We have 15 days left of a statutory of 20 days to get 17 House members. No, that can't come out of there for 20 days. Well, right. But 20 days started the day it was deferred. So we're down to, I think, 15 days now, which is two weeks for us to identify 17 members of the House. And 17 is what percentage of the 51? Is that what it is? I don't know where the number came from. There's 51 House members, so there's a percentage which has to add. Number 17. I don't know, you know, how that, I'm not that familiar with that. But the Coin and Roberts Rules is a percentage of members. That may be. It may be based on Roberts Rules. So that's what we're doing now. I want all our supporters out there to know that this isn't over yet. And we need, everybody needs to stay engaged. You can check our website, the hawaiadws.org, hawaiadws.org is our website. You can check that. And we'll be putting out the next move we're going to make once we know what that is. And we'll talk a little more about that. Yes, that is, you know, we need to know, and I mean it's not just you and me. There's a lot of people with a lot of smarts and ideas that will make, come to the fore to make this happen. My phone is running off the hook. I can't tell you how many emails I've received, people who are angry. And rightfully so, because, and we'll talk about why we think this happened in a minute. I would like to show, we've got a slide of a poll that was run in March 25th in Star Advertiser. And the poll was, what do you think about the legislature's failure to pass the medical aid and dying bill this session? It's rare that you see the numbers that voted in this poll online. As you can see there on the screen, bad. It denies the patient the right to choose, 1189 votes. Good. I don't support allowing doctors to prescribe the life-ending medication, 244 votes. Overwhelming. And again, this is very unusual that there would be this percentage of people who would jump in and vote on this poll. As a rule, those polls, you don't see that many people participating, much less, yes. So people have been calling me and emailing me. What do we do? What do we do? We're ready to go. And that's what we're going to be doing for the next 15 days is trying to make that happen. Yes. And now for our viewers, you know that the governors, the four ex-governors, four Democratic ex-governors, all wrote a letter supporting the bill. And that was published in the paper in December. Yes. And then we talked about it again with Governor Wahey on his program. And he's totally, of course, in support. He and Governor Abercrombie are trying their best to get the bill pulled. I don't know where they are in the process, but of course the legislators are pushing back. Kind of one of these old men talking about, you know, and it looks like it's just a real power play. I can't imagine what else it is. And I don't know the players. I don't know who's doing what. And of course they're not going to let us know because they know where we are in this one. So. You know, as we were both at that hearing and we saw the same thing, and I've watched the tape of it since then, and we don't know what happened because we've had such strong support. The Senate passed it, what, three no votes? Yeah, 22 to three. Two no votes and one abstention or something. One wasn't there, I believe. One excused, that was it. And so it moved over to the House, no problems, passed the full Senate, and then banned. After three hours of testimony, the bill was deferred. Todd, the new legislator. He had been for it, said he was supporting it, and then all of a sudden he says, well, I guess I changed my mind. There's too many unanswered questions, which is not true. Our chair of the committee, Della Albalotti, whom I've known since she was elected, which was 2006, she looked terribly uncomfortable if you review the tape. She looks very uncomfortable. And Marcus Oshiro would not look at me when I sat down to testify. He wouldn't look. You could feel the tension, you could feel that there's something else going on here. Of course I don't know what was going on. Well, one thing we do know, it was wired going in. Yeah, yes. It was a fader complaint when the hearing started. And the one Republican on the committee said, and I quote, that she was pleased or admired Della Albalotti for having the courage to do a deferment, which sounded to me like, okay, we know what's going to happen. They knew what was going to happen, but they had to sit through three hours. And the one thing that really bothered me, and this is retrospect, of course, because I kept feeling the tension and looking at the people and what have you, Dr. Rea Seitz was the quote expert for the opposition. And she has been palliative care and all of those wonderful things. What we didn't see was that Dr. Seitz, husband, is the high dollar attorney, Dr. Rea Seitz, and he is also the employer of Della Albalotti. Yes. And then when we arrived early that morning, he's sitting on the bench outside, and three hours later he is still there. And so all of these little pieces come together and the fix was in. Well, what is the fix was in? Again, yes. Coincidentally or not, two days ago there was an article in Civil Beat by Chad Blair. Money talks to lawmakers during legislative session. And I quote, last year just before the start of the Hawaii Legislature's 2016 session, I blogged about which lawmakers were already holding campaign fundraisers. Good. We have to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about exactly that, the money in the legislature. Okay? Are you looking to get shrunk? Join us on Shrink Rap Hawaii. My name is Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I see couples, individuals, families. You know why? Because we all have problems. And if you're curious about shrinks and what they talk about, come look at my show, Shrink Rap Hawaii. And maybe you'll find your shrink. You want to talk about some socially sensitive issues relevant to women? Listen to these guys. Well, I think it's important in Judaism that we don't take the Bible literally. We take it seriously. Okay. I agree. And really the key to understanding Christianity is compassion. If you're compassionate towards other people, you are living a Christian life. And that relates also to dealing with women and men and women issues as well. Are women and men equal? They're equal. Who's better? Who's better? Depends on what? Tune in. Hi, I'm Tim Apachello. I'm the host of Moving Hawaii Forward, a show dedicated to transportation issues and traffic issues here on Oahu. Join us every other Tuesday at 12 noon. And as we discuss how we try to solve our traffic headaches, not to include just the rail, but transit and carpooling and everything in between. So join us every other Tuesday, Moving Hawaii Forward. Thank you. And we're back. And now we're going to talk about money in the legislature because if we could deal with the money in the legislature, everything else would fall into place. Is that correct, Scott? That is correct. And I helped found an organization some years ago called the Hawaii Clean Elections Project. And our goal was to create publicly funded elections. If I had my way, we would limit the campaign season to 60 days. Every legislator would be given the same amount of money. And at the end of 60 days, the elections would take place. That's a dream. We may never get to that, but that was our original vision. The code I always like to refer to is clean elections, the reform that makes all other reforms possible, which leads us back to Chad Blair's article, Money Talks to Lawmakers During Legislative Session. I quote, last year just before the start of the legislature, 2016 session, I blogged about which lawmakers were already holding campaign fundraisers. Now, the reason this is important is, and I'll turn to the next page, quote, lawmakers like to raise money together. Not coincidentally, those same lawmakers often partner on legislation and are part of political factions. For example, Majority Leader Scott Psyche, Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke, and Judiciary Chairman Scott are the top house leaders. Well, that's not a coincidence. And why is this important? Well, one of the reasons is that Chad goes on. He says, some legislators raise money even when it seems like they don't need more. Sylvia Luke, for example, reported having $165,000 in cash at the end of 2016, even though she was unopposed for reelection. In fact, Luke spent more than any other House candidate, $118,000 in the 2016 election cycle. By comparison, the average expenditure for winning House candidates typically ranges from about $30,000 to around $60,000. But Luke also contributes money from her campaign to that of others, usually by purchasing fundraising tickets. Last year, Sylvia Luke supported representatives Tom Brower, Cedric Gates, Matt Lopresta, Aaron Ling, Yohansen, Carl Rhodes, Mark Nakashima, Richard Onishi, Geraint Kohalo-Colley, Joyce San Buenaventura, Lynn Descoyt, Takashi Ono, and Della Bellotti, who is the chair of the House Health Committee. Well, that's a page from LBJ, from President Johnson, because that's how he controlled the Congress, because he funded all of those guys. And that's the control right there. So if they decide, whatever they decide, the yay or nay on any bill, then by funding these other legislators, they get to, so that's the control. That's the crux of the matter. And common cause is now engaged in fighting for clean elections. We've got a long road to travel to see that happen. But while this is not a smoking gun, it certainly raises the question, why is this happening? And is this not the main reason that so many of our bills fail at the legislature? Of course it is. Of course it is. Back to the beginning of the article is why, when you have 51 legislators and this last election, 30 of them ran unopposed, why do they need to raise money? Now, granted, some of those people on that list were brand new. Okay, so they need to raise money. But so many of them, Albalates, was elected in 2006. Most of the time she's run unopposed. So why do they have to raise money? I can't answer that. Why do they need a war chest? They're not fighting off Republicans. Republicans didn't even put up a candidate. Well, my main question, the testimony, and you were talking about Dr. Seitz, who gave very compelling testimony. Yes, she did. And they were good questions. Even though she says she supports physician aid in dying in some circumstances, the rest of her testimony said, I don't support it. Well, she said in opposition, right up the bat. Right. So, but after I heard that the bill was deferred, I realized that it was her testimony raising those questions. However, the point needs to be made that it's not the purview of that committee to make the rules for this legislation. The rules is a whole other after the bill passes. That's where these intimate, close details are addressed. Well, and you know that we just had the Attorney General, Doug Chen, and he told us how he has been with the legislature or his office all the way to make sure of all of these things. So now we get to the hearing and they say, oh, we didn't know. Well, there was a forum and they didn't show up. Well, one of two things. It was all, as my grandmother would say, BS, or they really didn't know. Now, the young legislator you mentioned while ago who changed his mind, Todd, Representative Todd, I believed him because he's new to the issue as many of them are. But the bill was there to read, maybe his staff read it and he didn't. There was a forum for the legislators early in the process in January. Yes, we were there. And they weren't. No, they were not and we were looking for them. They weren't there. So the opportunity to educate themselves was there. And as serious as this legislation is, one would think that they would avail themselves of every opportunity and we've given them every opportunity. Well, I'm just disappointed when we talked to the Attorney General and he said that his office had been with them to clear up everything, to make sure that these things were in place and that he would be with them through the rulemaking right to the end. Yes. So, yes. Working with the health department to craft the rules and of course that's where the bill would be administered. And everyone knows that when a bill like this of such importance and life and death matters, certainly life and death matters, that it's not just going to pass the legislature and all of a sudden the bill is enacted. No, it goes through that whole process of rulemaking which all comes back to the legislature for their approval. And we went through this with Medical Marijuana and then the dispensaries, this past session. And the rules went back and forth and back and forth until they got what they wanted. Well, that is exactly what we thought was going to happen. It is, yes. And we haven't given up. So if anybody that's out there that's interested, we haven't given up. It's not over yet. It's not over yet. And we have to go and we've got to do all kinds of things to make sure. So if you've got ideas, if you've got anything, call me, tell me. We've got to make this happen. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, audience, for being with us. We really appreciate all of your input. Aloha.